Writer, performer, poet, activist, on-and-off academic.

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Quick note: on creativity and “creative people”

This morning, in my travels through social media, I stumbled into a discussion about creativity and what it means to be an artist. Much of it rang true: that it’s increasingly difficult to make a living purely from your art; that success or failure in your chosen art form is tied in to a deeply personal sense of self and self-worth; that creating can feel as though it is essential to your life. Yup.

However, there was also a note to some of the comments that made me feel very uncomfortable – the idea that being an artist is something mysterious and ineffable and special, that “the average office-worker” just can’t comprehend. Underlying this sort of attitude is a number of assumptions, all of which are (in my view) utterly busted:

– That “office worker” and “artist” are mutually-exclusive categories. (Does my bill-paying day job stop me from being an artist? Does it unpublish my poetry, undo my performances, cancel out the hours I dedicate to my writing?)

– That there are Creative People, and Non-Creative People, existing in two separate and essentialised categories.

This last one is a real sticking-point for me. I do not think this is a useful division to put up. I think that there are some people who have found a medium (or several) that works for them, and it’s a medium that is generally recognised as Art by the society in which they live, and they have either been encouraged in it or fell in love with it enough to work on it without encouragement, and they’re public about their relationship with it. And then there are people who don’t meet all these criteria – but that doesn’t mean they’re not creative.

I firmly believe that all people have the potential to be creative. And I say this not just as a point of ideology, but from the perspective of someone who once spent a significant amount of their spare time running art classes for little kids. There were kids who didn’t want to talk much, or who zoomed around the classroom and wouldn’t sit down, or who tried to pick arguments with their peers and teachers: but all of them, at the end of the day, made something and had fun doing so. From my experience, I think it’s the case that little kids are much less self-conscious about making art than older people: it’s only once they get older, and some of them have been encouraged and some have been shut down, that you start to see people who are put into the category of “not creative”, whether that’s because they’ve been told they’re not talented enough to succeed and so they stop trying, or because their creativity is expressed in a medium that isn’t seen as “proper art”.

But creativity is (and should be) for EVERYONE. And some people come to it early, and some late, and some not at all – but I just do not believe that there are people who have absolutely no creative spark in them, somewhere.

Also, when I finished writing this entry, I didn’t really have a pithy final sentence with which to make a final flourish, but I think this Twitter conversation with Goldfish has provided it:

@goldfish: “On Creativity & Creative People” @hel_gurney is spot-on about there being nothing magical about artists
@hel_gurney: .@goldfish Or perhaps, that art is a kind of magic that anyone can do :) Thank you lots for your tweet and comment!
@goldfish: Yes – that’s a much better way of putting it!

So there we go: art is a kind of magic that anyone can do. Go forth, and find new spells to learn and love.

This is so true. I can’t name a single person of my acquaintance who is not either creative or musical (many are both). Probably the person I know who exhibits least creativity on a day to day basis is my father who works long hours in administration, but he was once an art student, he can sing and play cornet. It is part of the human condition, even when (often through a lack of opportunity rather than a lack of motivation) some folks just don’t get to be all that creative in their everyday lives and work

This reminded me of this lengthy but excellent piece: In the name of love about the social privilege that allows folks to implore us all to “do what we love” as if those who work regular unexciting jobs just aren’t trying hard enough. As a writer, especially, I’m aware of a great history of writers who did other things at the same time – not until they got good enough, but until they got the lucky break that allowed them to go full time. And financially rewarding recognition is mostly about luck.

Creativity is not a binary thing, like so much of life. Some people are more creative than others. Some have found their spark and practise it more than others. Some just don’t enjoy “pointless” creativity, that is making art for the sake of making art. And no I’m not saying it’s pointless, but these types of people would say making something with a practical use is a better use of their time. However it doesn’t mean they are uncreative when designing practical things.

Creativity is a snowflake of concepts. To say there are creative and non-creative people is looking at it from a very binary view, which we really need less of in this world as it is not as black and white as many people think.

Tangentially, this discussion reminds me of a really cool producer who gave a lecture at my filmschool last year (and by ‘cool’ I mean ‘genuinely nice, engaged and deserving of his success because he clearly cares and works hard’, which sadly is not always the case with successful people in the film and television industry). He corrected a student when they called writers/directors/actors etc ‘creatives’, as opposed to, say, camera operators, sound recordists, production managers – the people who don’t get a lot of say as to the content of a production but who are responsible for a lot of the actual day-to-day of the production process. He said that he doesn’t like the term ‘creatives’ because it implies that people like production managers AREN’T creative – when, from where he’s stood, someone who has to work out how to make a July afternoon in Cardiff look like Christmas in London is exceptionally creative; same for someone who has to work out how to provide catering and toilets for 300 people on a shoestring budget, or someone who has to get all the tax deals worked out so the production doesn’t get fined under European film financing laws.

Essentially he was pointing out the hypocrisy inherent to a ‘creative’ industry that seeks to legitimise only a very narrow definition of artistry – an issue that is also a classist one. (people who’ve made it as actors, screenwriters and directors – the ‘creatives’ – still tend either to have influential friends/family members already in the industry who can get them work at the start of their careers, or have wealthy families who can support them whilst they’re trying to get their big break, or both . People who work as crew are much more likely to be people who liked the creativity and dynamism of the production industry, but can’t afford to spend long stretches of time unemployed whilst waiting for a starring role to turn up). BASICALLY what I’m saying is I agree: we are all of us creative, one way or another, and artificial delineations between ‘creatives’ and ‘non-creatives’ are unhelpful and probably classist.